By Bryan Marshall
The Madison County School Board got their first look Thursday at artist renderings of the future Madison County middle school honoring the late Superintendent Mike Caudill.
The board took the next step in seeing B. Michael Caudill Middle School come to fruition by approving the design and development plans for the school during the regular monthly meeting.
The new 95,000-square-foot, one-story school will be located on the campus of Glenn Marshall Elementary on the Robert R. Martin Bypass.
With a capacity to serve 600 students, the school is scheduled to open for the 2009-10 school year.
Construction is estimated to cost about $20 million, including softball and baseball fields with concession stands, storage, dugouts and lighting.
“It is exciting to get the school going as fast as we’ve gotten it going,” said Board Chair Betsy Bohannon.
Along with 3-D designs of individual rooms, including plans for the kitchen, media center, art rooms, science rooms and a home economics lab, the plans also featured interior and exterior renderings of the building.
The middle school, which will be the largest in the district, will include 16 standard classrooms, six Carnegie Learning labs and three classroom wings, one for each grade.
“Since late December, several people have approached me to tell me that this middle school really needs to be something special,” said Tony Thomas, architect for Clotfelter Samokar of Lexington. “There’s been a lot of principals, teachers, administrators and staff who’ve offered their time, knowledge and vision in the planning of the new B. Michael Caudill Middle School.”
While it is not official, the school’s logo likely will be the Spartans and the school’s color likely will be yellow and red.
Board member Becky Coyle expressed concern about whether there would be an adequate amount of parking at the Marshall Elementary-Caudill Middle campus.
About 150 parking spaces will be added during the construction, Thomas said.
“As it is now, these lots hardly even fill half the way up for the Marshall Elementary School,” he said. “We’re adding parking for the baseball field as well. The good thing is that all the lanes are wide enough where in an overflow situation you could almost single park along the edge of the roads and add a lot of parking spaces.”
“I feel like we’ve looked at it pretty closely and there should be adequate parking,” Thomas said.
Another issue discussed was the plan to build a new entrance with a traffic light into the campus from the Martin Bypass.
“We don’t have approval back yet from the state on that entrance and whether they’re going to pay for it,” said former Acting Superintendent Glenn Marshall, who helps the district with construction projects. “We’re not allowed to put it in ourselves.
“The light issue is a future prospect,” he said. “If we operate without a light, we might look at it being exit only or turn in only. We’ll cross that bridge when we find out if we’re even allowed to put the entrance in.”
With the approval of the design and development plan, a vote by the board on final plans for the school will likely be conducted in March with a bid for construction awarded in April.
“There may not be bricks and mortar placed upon the hill yet, but the vision of this school already has gained a special status in the hearts and minds of many in this community,” Thomas said.
